Wednesday, June 12, 2019

African Americans At Normandy (D-Day): Medgar Evers

Last week, The Raleigh News and Observer printed an article about African Americans at D-Day.

The article did not mention it, but one of the African Americans fighting for the allies at D-Day was the late Medgar Wiley Evers, a civil rights activist in Mississippi who was assassinated on June 12, 1963 by Byron De La Beckwith of Greenwood.

After World War II, Evers received a degree from Alcorn State College near Jackson, and became the state's first NAACP field secretary.

Beckwith was also a World War II veteran, having served on Guadalcanal. He belonged to both the Klan and the White Citizen's Council.

After three trials, Beckwith was finally convicted of Medgar Evers' murder in a state trial in 1994. He died in prison.

Friday, April 19, 2019

Donald J Trump Is A Disloyal American

The release today of the Mueller Report makes it clear that Donald J Trump is disloyal. He is also a crook.

But we already knew that.

We also already knew that the only way he was elected to the presidency is with the help of Putin and his Russian collaborators.

In this country, about three million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Trump.

Trump is a loser.


Sunday, March 31, 2019

Back On Line

I've been away for awhile. Getting back on line. In the meantime, had a hurricane (Florence) and some not very bad medical issues. Worse than that, we have had a sustained, prolonged attack (by our president and the NC state legislature) on American democracy.

Only we can save ourselves.

Friday, January 4, 2019

Seventh Century Solution To A Twenty-First Century Problem?

At least, that's what some observers say.

Actually, it is a seventh-century B.C. solution. At least, that's when the Great Wall of China was first begun.

It didn't keep the Mongols and other nomads from entering China.

Nearly three millennia later (in 1981), my wife and I passed through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. That wall didn't keep us out, and it didn't keep all of the Berliners in. It survived all the way from 1961 to 1992.

It didn't do much good.

So what is the problem Donald J. Trump is actually trying to solve?

Best to know that before spending a lot of money.

We seem to have pretty well solved the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico.

NAFTA did that.

More cruelty and inhumanity and refusal to carry out our international obligations toward refugees and asylum seekers won't make that better.

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Ozymandius

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".